Torch Energy Royalty Trust (NYSE:TRU) tops the list with a majority of the company owned by institutional investors, but Ameriana Bancorp (NASDAQ:ASBI) had the highest return at 63.64%.

MINYANVILLE ORIGINAL Torch Energy Royalty Trust (NYSE:TRU) was the smallest cap stock we could find that had the largest share of institutional holdings. With just $11.61 million in market capitalization, the firm's largest institutional holder is Silver Point Capital with 5.365 million shares worth $7.243 million at today's stock price of $1.35. This gave the Greenwich-based private investment firm a 62.38% holding in the oil and gas property trust, according to Minyanville's research.

The small cap companies with the largest institutional holders ranged in market capitalization from $11.61 million to $26.97 million. The percentages held by institutional investors ranged from a low of 13.71% to a high of 62.40%. While Silver Point held the largest share of the smallest company on the list, Austin-based mutual fund advising firm Dimensional Fund Advisors held the largest stake across the top 10 small caps with close to $4 million worth of shares in five companies on the list (it wasn't always the largest shareholder).

In aggregate, the top 10 list returned 66.67%, four and a half times more thant the S&P SmallCap 600 (INDEXSP:SP600) which has a total return of 14.86%, year-to-date. Returns ranged from a high of 63.64% for bank holding company Ameriana Bancorp (NASDAQ:ASBI) to a low of -42.74% for Torch Energy Trust.

To form the initial list, we used Google Finance Stock Screener and the Google Finance quote pages for the current market cap. Because of delays in updating the screener by Google, the original list had Kingstone Companies (NASDAQ:KINS) listed as being over 13% institutionally held. However, when we checked the Nasdaq stock screener, insitutional holdings for that stock had fallen to 0.35% (the Nasdaq screener contained data through the second quarter). We also used Insider Cow to double check institutional holdings. This list excludes ETFs, which will be the subject of a separate article.